A little courtyard gave us partial shelter while Rashîd ran up some rough stone steps and hammered at a door, exclaiming:
'Peace be on this house! My master craves for food and shelter, and we, his servants, ask the same boon of thy goodness. O master of the house, God will reward thy hospitality!'
The door was opened and a man appeared, bidding us all come in, in Allah's name. He was of middle height and thick-set, with a heavy grey moustache. An old-fashioned, low-crowned fez, with large blue tassel, was bound about his brow with an embroidered turban. A blue zouave jacket, crimson vest and baggy trousers of a darker blue completed his apparel, for his feet were bare. In his girdle were a pair of pistols and a scimitar.
He bade us welcome in bad Arabic, showing us into a good-sized room—the upper chamber we had seen from far. Its windows, innocent of glass, were closed by wooden shutters, roughly bolted, which creaked and rattled in the gale. A very fine-looking old man rose from the divan to greet us.
'What countryman art thou? A Turk, or one of us?' he asked, as I removed my head-shawl. 'An Englishman, sayest thou?' He seized my hand, and pressed it. 'An Englishman—any Englishman—is good, and his word is sure. But the English Government is very bad. Three Englishmen in Kars behaved like warrior-angels, fought like devils. And while they fought for us their Government betrayed our country. What? Thou hast heard about it? Praise to Allah! At last I meet with one who can confirm the story. My son here thinks that I invented it.'
I happened to have read of the defence of Kars under the leadership of three heroic Englishmen—General Williams, Captain Teesdale, and Doctor Sandwith—and of the betrayal of the Circassian rising under Shamyl at the time of the Crimean war.
The old man was delighted. 'Listen, O my son!' he called out to the person who had let us in. 'It is true what I have often told to thee. This Englishman knows all about it. So does all the world, except such blockheads as thyself and thy companions.'
His son begged to be excused a minute while he put his crops into the barn. Therewith he dragged a sack out of the room. What crops he may have grown I do not know; but this I know—the contents of that sack clanked as he dragged it out.
When he returned, he brought a bowl of eggs cooked in clarified butter, two slabs of bread, and a great jug of water, apologising for the coarseness of the fare. We all supped together, the old man babbling of the days of old with great excitement. His son stared at me with unblinking eyes. At last he said:
'I like thee, O khawâjah. I had once a son about thy age. Say, O my father, is there not a strong resemblance?'